Category: Programming
Let’s take a quick look at some of the latest developments in the Apple II world. Juiced.GS, June 2013 edition is available. This issue features a behind-the-scenes look at the discovery and publication of 8-bit shooting game Zéphyr; an interview with the conference services staff at Rockhurst University, host of KansasFest; reviews of Option8′s RetroConnector keyboard interface device, and of Karateka Classic and Lode Runner Classic for iOS; a history of Apple II software publisher Electronic Arts; and much, much more!…
What’s been going on in the Apple II world these past few days? Let’s take a look: 1.) Steven Weyhrich is asking about the Applesoft Firmware card in comp.sys.apple2 for his upcoming Apple II history book. 2.) The Daily Apple blog has been keeping up with daily updates. Currently we are working on Pascal and BASIC programming, and trying to use the Apple IIc as a command-line terminal. 3.) Wade Clarke has started a new web site called Wade-Memoir where he…
The first is more of an update than a review. Ubuntu 13.4 is out. For those into running Linux this has been a fairly successful update. Although I haven’t tried it there does not appear to be many complaints. Mint 15 (derived from this version of Ubuntu) should be out toward the end of May. The second is a program called Simutrans found at http://freecode.com. Alternatively it is available in the repositories if there is access to a Debian based…
Java once again is at the firestorm of vulnerabilities with Apple. The latest release of Java 6 has been exploited again and Apple is pushing out an update, Java for Mac OS X 2013-002. According to the information provided in the update panel, “Java for OS X 2013-002 delivers improved security, reliability, and compatibility by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_43. On systems that have not already installed Java for OS X 2012-006, this update disables the Java SE 6…
Brendan Robert has released a new and improved version of his Java Apple II emulator. ] 65c02 CPU emulation is now 100%, tested and verified thanks to Klaus Dormann’s test suite: https://github.com/redline6561/cl-6502/blob/b008…nctional_test.a65 ] Overall CPU usage is way down thanks to recent changes: Video generation rolled into main thread and this made things a lot more efficient Switched to older timer model, newer lock-based timers were considerably slower Memory listener model streamlined to be more efficient ] Skyfox now detects…
What is K3b? It is a free CD/DVD/Bluray burning program for Linux (it can be compiled for the Mac as well). For the last little while, even before the last upgrade to the current version of Mint, I was having some trouble with the program. At first it no longer wanted to verify data disks. Just recently it wouldn’t even read the hard drive to pick up files to burn. It turned out the problem was a permissions thing. Unfortunately…
Apple has released the same Flashback Trojan Removal Tool that is found in the Java update for OS X 2012-003 as a standalone tool. The new standalone version of the tool is for those users without Java installed. You can download the Flashback malware Removal Tool from the Software Update feature under the Apple menu or from the Apple support website at: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1517
Apple has released a third update to Java for both Mac OS x Lion and Mac OS X 10.6 to deal with the infections of the Flashback Trojan. Infections reached a whopping 600,000 machines globally according to three anti-virus companies that were monitoring it (Dr. Web, the discoverer of the Trojan, Kaspersky, and Symantec) , however, that number has dropped to 270,000 in recent days. The update on the Apple Support Website updates Java to Version 1.6.0_31. This brings it…
Oliver Schmidt, long known for his work on several projects in the Apple][ community including Contiki and Applewin, has now delved into documenting the internals of GEOS, the Berkeley Softworks produced operating system for the Apple ][. In his announcement in the comp.sys.apple2 newsgroup, Oliver says” Although the Apple GEOS filesystem is based on ProDOS 8 the Apple GEOS files are not standard ProDOS 8 files. I’m not refering to file content here but to the file structure – meaning…
The Digital Antiquarian website, run by Jimmy Maher is proposing an old fashioned version of a Robot War Tournament. His recent posting about Muse Software’s Robot War for the Apple ][ brought out the folks who have long wondered if a tournament like those of the early 1980’s could be once again be held. In Jimmy Maher’s posting on comp.sys.apple2, he says “I’ve been writing about the Apple II quite a lot in recent months, as I judge it the…
T. C. Lim has been working on a book about Pascal programming for the Apple II gs for the past several weeks, releasing preliminary versions along the way. The book includes a number of programs his kids have developed for the Apple IIgs in Pascal, Orca Pascal, and GSoft BASIC. The book was produced with iBooks Author and is the first Apple ][ series related book to be produced specifically for iBooks 2.0. T.C. has announced the immediate availability of…
Mozilla has updated their popular Firefox Internet browser to Version 10. Their email client Thunderbird has also been updated to compliment the Firefox package. The primary focus of these updates are the inclusion of developer toos, giving the developer easy access to the HTML and CSS code associated with the website being viewed. The latest implementation of Firefox also makes it easy to build WebGL 3 dimensional graphics without additional software. The latest version includes the following fixes and updates:…
Mike Maginnis has managed to make the Apple /// Cobol software and manuals available ont he Apple ][ Scans website. Thanks to a loan of the materials from David Scmenck, the Apple /// collection is one item richer today. Originally released by Apple in 1982, it sold for a whopping $500 at the time. To download the software and the manuals, check out the Apple][ scans website at: http://apple2scans.net/apple-iii/apple-iii-cobol/
Lim Thaye Chen has made his Virtual GS Programming book available in both PDF and iBook format on the Virtual GS website. The book is the first Apple ][ specific book to have been created with the new iBooks Author package introduced by Apple this month. You can download the book in it’s entirety for free from the Virtual GS website at: http://virtual-gs.appspot.com/web/Book.html
Apple, Inc. has released another update to the upcoming release of Mac OS X, 10.7.3. The Build 11D50 is a 997mb download and while there are still questions about what Apple has planned, the laast few builds have been fairly stable. To download the latest build, you will need a Developer account. The build can be downloaded at: http://developer.apple.com/
If one really thinks about it, text files are a kind of virtual memory. You can add strings, retrieve strings. And if the strings are of a fixed length, then you can even replace strings in a text file. But I found the text file commands of DOS3.3 and Basic.system very slow. Some recommendations were to save your strings to a BIN file instead. So I combined the two and created a sort of semi-Virtual memory for strings Applesoft is…
Those of us in Canada are aware how our government keeps “shooting itself in the foot”. Those outside the country may not be aware just how silly and petty our government can get. For example they have this thing about promoting Canadian culture in the media. Not too bad on the surface of things right? Rather than encourage Canadians to produce our own material they de-regulate the media so they can purchase more American programming. Some of the stuff from…
WIlli Kuche has documented the Merlin Macro Assembler IDE Source code and made it available for download. Merlin, which was written by Glen Bredon at Southwestern Data Systems, was available for download for the past two years, however, the version that was available was without documentation and without instructions for building the IDE. Now after a long effort by Willi, the IDE is documented, and according to Willi’s note left on CSA2, “it contains all the source files needed to…
The Apple ][ command shell, Davex is now available for download. The shell written by famed Apple programmer Dave Lyons, is a pure command line shell for ProDOS 8. According to David Schmidt’s post in CSA2, “The current (preliminary) version is 1.30p, and includes executables on disk images for both ProDOS and SOS computers and emulators. The ProDOS version currently lacks some of the external commands (but you can watch the Sourceforge project for more), and the SOS version is…
This article is presented for those with Intel Macs (and PCs) who choose to have an alternative operating system available. It is possible to install it as a Dual-Boot system, Virtual Machine, or just run it from the live DVD. Late last month (November) Mint 12 was released to the public (free). Mint is a full multi-media distribution of Linux. There has been a lot of extremely positive press about this version. It’s almost as if someone hired the PR…
